I'm not sure why you expect it to be so controversial, though - considering that I can't think of any Japanese site members.
The argument about the atomic bombs shortening the war and ultimately saving lives has been made often - it has a certain plausibility, I can't claim to know enough about the details of that part of the war to have a strong opinion about it either way. Or wasn't that the controversial point you meant? The part about the Yamato was, well, I can't really say their conclusion is that shocking or surprising... the Japanese military leadership has done a number of things American military leadership would never do during that war, I dare say.
The argument about the atomic bombs shortening the war and ultimately saving lives has been made often - it has a certain plausibility, I can't claim to know enough about the details of that part of the war to have a strong opinion about it either way. Or wasn't that the controversial point you meant? The part about the Yamato was, well, I can't really say their conclusion is that shocking or surprising... the Japanese military leadership has done a number of things American military leadership would never do during that war, I dare say.
The argument that it was saving lives is what was taught to us in our military history courses in the Marine Corps. The estimations that the military came up with were that if the bombs ended the war with Japan that hundreds of thousands of lives would be saved by using the bomb versus continuing the slow island hopping campaign.
Granted this is what is taught in the military, so you can take it with a grain of salt, but it does make sense when you look at the shocking number of casualties sustained by both Americans and Japanese in places like Iwo Jima. If we had to invade mainland Japan and fight in the cities.....
This will be controversial in the extreme, I expect -
- 04/03/2010 09:01:16 PM
381 Views
Fascinating is the word.
- 04/03/2010 09:09:21 PM
191 Views
Re: Fascinating is the word.
- 04/03/2010 09:53:26 PM
177 Views
An interesting tidbit
- 04/03/2010 10:02:32 PM
176 Views
Makes sense; I've always heard invasion casualty estimates were 3 million dead.
- 04/03/2010 10:40:11 PM
171 Views
That estimate sounds like what they told us. Not 100% on it though. *NM*
- 04/03/2010 10:54:35 PM
55 Views
Look at the casulities just from Okinawa and you can get an idea of what would have happened
- 04/03/2010 11:43:00 PM
175 Views
Agreed.
- 05/03/2010 01:14:13 AM
166 Views
I'm not sure why it should be controversial. It was a great insight and one man's opinion.
- 04/03/2010 09:26:19 PM
196 Views